Jon and Jake Auerbach had a good run into the early part of the week: An Ace on Saturday started the day off well, but vapor lock somewhere near Miami, Oklahoma–97 degrees that day–meant they lost 10 minutes. Extensive speedometer calibration really paid on on Sunday, where they finished all five legs between eight and 14 seconds early. Jon said:

Conclusion: We are getting up early before tomorrow’s start to recalibrate the speedo. The procedure is to check that the tire pressures are correct when cold, take the car out and run hard for 15 minutes to warm them up (which they will be all day), then measure in inches the distance the car travels in five complete revolutions of the wheel with the speedo contact, and finally translate that number into a calibration factor on the speedo itself. Sounds like we know what we are doing??”

Monday, between Pueblo and Durango Colorado, they pulled all the way up to 6th in the Rookie class, 43rd overall. We didn’t hear from them on Tuesday, but here’s this morning’s report:

Today our route wove through the backroads of the “4 Corners” (The point where CO, AZ, NM, and UT are contiguous). We started in Colorado, then drove thorough New Mexico, back into Colorado, into Utah and finally finished in Arizona. The route was either grasslands (prairie) or desert/lunar landscape (Monument Valley). We reached altitudes of 10,000 feet and while others had vapor lock problems at that altitude, the Lazz continued to perform well. Our time disappointed us. We calibrated early and made some corrections on our speedo. There were 4 legs today and we clocked 2, 4, and 12 seconds on 3 and then somehow were 32 seconds off on a 4th. We reviewed our moves and we are at a loss to understand that rogue score. The Great Race web site is down but I suspect we were just under half-way point….again!

Page is part of the Navaho Nation which stretches several hundred miles from Western NM to Eastern AZ through striking terrain for which you must carefully prepare your moves; we had one stretch today where we had to log 120 miles without access to fuel….so plan ahead to avoid the Shakespearean dictum, something about a fuel and his money……We had a rousing fireworks display this evening and the oohs and aahs heard here in the Navaho nation are no different from those heard at Main Beach in East Hampton.

Since we start at 0600 tomorrow morning I shall not go into the rambling mode now and instead get some rest to prepare my mind and body for a 500 mile route to Tonopah (where?) Nevada.